Network Live Japan

Network Live, the concert distribution venture between AOL, XM Satellite Radio and AEG, has announced a partnership with Dreamboat and Dentsu Casting & Entertainment that will make its content available to consumers in Japan.

Dentsu Casting & Entertainment is the entertainment marketing subsidiary of Dentsu, Japan’s largest advertising agency. Dreamboat is an IT technology company specializing in high-speed content transmission.

The agreement will give the two Japanese companies exclusive access to Network Live’s mix of programming, which includes live and prerecorded concerts, interviews with artists and other special events.

Dentsu and Dreamboat will offer this content to their distribution partners in Japan. The first concert to be made available to the Japanese partners will be Bon Jovi‘s September 2005 performance at the opening of the Nokia Theatre in New York.

The three companies already have a history of bringing live shows to Japan, particularly the Live 8 concerts that took place last year in various cities around the world.

It was also announced that B’z, Japan’s biggest-selling rock group, has been added to the Network Live international lineup. One of the group’s concerts later this year will be filmed and distributed worldwide through Network Live.

– Philip Brasor